But the walk across town eased her anger, and by the time she got on the Third Avenue bus to go back up to the apartment on Seventy-eighth Street, she was calm. She was even pleased to be alone for a while. She spent the time with Benny’s Chess Informants, a new series of books from Yugoslavia, playing out games in her head.
He came in sometime during the middle of the night; she woke when he got into bed. She was glad he was back, but she didn’t want to make love with him. Fortunately he wasn’t interested either. She asked him how he had done. “Nearly six hundred,” he said, pleased with himself. She rolled over and went back to sleep.
They made love in the morning, and she did not enjoy it much. She knew she was still angry with him for the poker game—not for the game itself but for the way he had used it just when they had become lovers. When they were finished, he sat up in bed and looked at her for a minute. “You’re pissed at me, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“The poker game?”
“The way you didn’t tell me about it.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry. I do keep my distance.”
She was relieved that he had said it. “I suppose I do too,” she said.
“I’ve noticed.”
After breakfast she suggested a game between the two of them, and he agreed reluctantly. They set the clock for a half-hour each, to keep it brief, and she proceeded to beat him handily with her Sicilian Levenfish, brushing aside his threats with ease and hounding his king mercilessly. When it was over he shook his head wryly and said, “I needed that six hundred.”
“Maybe so,” she said, “but your timing was bad.”
“It doesn’t pay to cross you, does it?”
“Do you want to play another?”
Benny shrugged and turned away. “Save it for Borgov.” But she could see he would have played her if he had thought he could win. She felt a whole lot better.
They continued as lovers and did not play any more games, except from the books. He went out a few days later for another poker game and came back with two hundred in winnings and they had one of their best times in bed together, with the money beside them on the night table. She was fond of him, but that was all. And by the last week before Paris, she was beginning to feel that he had little left to teach her.
TWELVE
Mrs. Wheatley had always carried Beth’s adoption papers and birth certificate with her when they traveled, and Beth had continued the practice, though up to now they had never been needed. During her first week in New York, Benny took her to Rockefeller Center, and she used them in applying for her passport. Mexico had required only a tourist card, and Mrs. Wheatley had taken care of that. The little booklet with the green cover and her tight-lipped picture inside came two weeks later. Even though she wasn’t sure of going, she had sent the Paris acceptance in a few days before leaving Kentucky for Ohio.
When the time came, Benny drove her to Kennedy Airport and dropped her off at the Air France terminal. “He’s not impossible,” Benny said. “You can beat him.”
“We’ll see,” she said. “Thanks for the help.” She had gotten her suitcase out of the car and was standing by the driver’s window. They were in a no-parking zone, and he could not leave the car to see her off.
“See you next week,” Benny said.
For a moment she wanted to lean in the open window and kiss him, but she restrained herself. “See you then.” She picked up her suitcase and went into the terminal.
This time she was expecting to feel the dark hostility that even seeing him across a room could make her feel, but being prepared for it did not stop her from a sharp intake of breath. He was standing with his back to her, talking to reporters. She looked away nervously, as she had looked away the first time at the zoo in Mexico City. He was just another man in a dark suit, another Russian who played chess, she told herself. One of the men was taking his picture while the other was talking to him. Beth watched the three of them for a while, and her tension eased. She could beat him. She turned and went to the desk to register. Play would start in twenty minutes.
It was the smallest tournament she had ever seen, in this elegant old building near the École Militaire. There were six players and five rounds—one round a day for five days. If she or Borgov lost an early round, they would not play each other, and the competition was strong. Yet, strong as it was, she did not feel either of them would be beaten by anyone else. She walked through the doorway into the tournament room proper, feeling no anxiety about the game she would be playing this morning or about the ones over the next few days. She would not play Borgov until one of the final rounds. She would meet a Dutch grandmaster in ten minutes and play Black against him, but she felt no apprehension.
France was not known for its chess, but the room they played in was beautiful. Two crystal chandeliers hung from its high blue ceiling, and the blue flowered carpet on the floor was thick and rich. There were three tables of polished walnut, each with a pink carnation in a small vase at the side of the board. The antique chairs were upholstered in blue velvet that matched the floor and ceiling. It was like an expensive restaurant, and the tournament directors were like well-trained waiters in tuxedos. Everything was quiet and smooth. She had flown in from New York the night before, had seen almost nothing yet of Paris, but she felt at ease here. She had slept well on the plane and then slept again in her hotel; before that she had put in five solid weeks of practice. She had never felt more prepared.
The Dutchman played the Réti Opening, and she treated it the way she did when Benny played it, getting equality by the ninth move. She began attacking before he had a chance to castle, at first with a bishop sacrifice and then by forcing him to give up a knight and two pawns to defend his king. By the sixteenth move she was threatening combinations all over the board and although she was never able to bring one off, the threat was enough. He was forced to yield to her a bit at a time until, bottled up and irrecoverably behind, he gave up. She was walking happily along the Rue de Rivoli by noon, enjoying the sunshine. She looked at blouses and shoes in the shop windows, and while she bought nothing, it was a pleasure. Paris was a bit like New York but more civilized. The streets were clean and the shop windows bright; there were real sidewalk cafes and people sitting in them enjoying themselves, talking in French. She had been so wrapped up in chess that only now did she realize: she was actually in Paris! This was Paris, this avenue she was walking on; those beautifully dressed women walking toward her were Frenchwomen, Parisiennes, and she herself was eighteen years old and the United States Champion at chess. She felt for a moment a joyful pressure in her chest and slowed her walking. Two men were passing her, heads bent in conversation, and she heard one saying “…avec deux parties seulement.” Frenchmen, and she understood the words! She stopped walking and stood where she was for a moment, taking in the fine gray buildings across the avenue, the light on the trees, the odd smells of this humane city. She might have an apartment here someday, on the Boulevard Raspail or the Rue des Capucines. By the time she was in her twenties she could be World’s Champion and live wherever she wanted to live. She could have a pied à terre in Paris and go to concerts and plays, eat lunch every day in a different café, and dress like these women who walked by her, so sure of themselves, so smart in their well-made clothes, with their heads high and their hair impeccably cut and combed and shaped. She had something that none of them had, and it could give her a life that anyone might envy. Benny had been right to urge her to play here and then, next summer, in Moscow. There was nothing to hold her in Kentucky, in her house; she had possibilities that were endless.